Mike Savage and Fiona Devine have written a reply to blog posts from Danny Dorling, Paul Lambert & Dave Griffiths and myself about the Great British Class Survey. Readers won't need any help from me to judge how effectively they have defended themselves. My first thought was: is that the best they could do? I can't see that they address adequately any of the points that I raise.
I would like them though to cite chapter and verse as to where I have claimed that a "... kind of uni-dimensional measure..." is one that I would see "...as preferable" and while they are about it perhaps they could get straight part of my argument. Apparently they believe that I am "... unclear how we are using the concept of class in our study...". But that is not at all what I wrote. The gist of what I said is that it was not clear to me what they are going to use it for, the usual suspects having been excluded by the logic of the method of construction. If they can't see that these are quite different things, then it is difficult to know where to begin to set them right.
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2 comments:
It was a very disappointing response. Especially irritating was the way they pointed to the study's popularity as if that absolved its many weaknesses.
If your back is against the wall, change the subject, talk about something irrelevant and trust your intuition that most British sociologists (present company accepted)won't notice: "Thus I refute you Sir!". Seems to work pretty well. Look who the leading figures are in our discipline.
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